Earlier this week, I saw an infographic from the brilliant Melonie Dorado which showed some stats for social media in 2013. I was particularly drawn to the Twitter stats:

There are 500m Twitter accounts

21% of the world’s internet population use Twitter every month

Pretty impressive stats, eh? These stats say to me that there are a lot of people on Twitter (clearly!), but also that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get your voice heard. So, here are 5 Twitter tips to help your voice resonate.

Use Hash-tags: Hash-tags are a great way of reaching out to new audiences, and tweets with 1 or 2 hash-tags show a 21% higher engagement. If you use a hash-tag, then it becomes much easier for people to see your content and engage with it. However, don’t over-do it – having lots of hash-tags can make a message tough to read!

Interact: Conversations and interactions make Twitter exciting. So, ask questions and answer them as well. You don’t need to be connected to another Twitter user to converse with them, so use the search function to find out who else is tweeting about your chosen subject.

Make Your Content Rich: Articles are very easy to share on Twitter, but they are not always visually engaging, particularly as most article links are shortened. So if it is appropriate to your objective, share some broader content – pictures, videos and of course Vine, which is a great fit with the attention-shortened Twitter user.

Have a Content Plan: Some days on Twitter there is a lot of content to comment on or discuss. However, on some days there isn’t, so you will need to have some content of your own to spark the conversation. You should have a rolling 2 week content plan which is flexible enough to adapt when something else takes over the Twitterverse. This will also encourage you to look at your content frequency, i.e. the number of posts per day.

Have a Contingency Plan: One of the beauties of Twitter is also one of its most dangerous features – its speed. Some of the best intentioned Twitter marketing campaigns have taken a turn for the worse because a group of Twitter users have ‘hijacked’ the campaign. Before you start your campaign, think of every angle where the campaign could go wrong and plan your response.

I am sure that you have some great Twitter tips, so please leave a comment to share yours!